


New Things and Heavy Things

by alienchrist



Series: Orion Surana [1]
Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Amputation, Drabble Sequence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-13
Updated: 2012-06-13
Packaged: 2017-11-07 15:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/432664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alienchrist/pseuds/alienchrist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orion Surana loses his arm in a fight, and everyone seems to thinks Zevran can put him on the mend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Things and Heavy Things

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this kink meme prompt: "Surana during a fight has his arm almost torn off either by a dragon or an ogre. Wynne and Morrigan attempt to save his limb but the end results in him losing his arm..." here: http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/8033.html?thread=27147617#t27147617

**Witness**

Darkspawn are a relief from the paranoid claustrophobia of the Deep Roads. Fighting, Orion Surana finally smiles, sparks flying. Zevran treasures the sight.

He sees when Orion is overrun, but is too far away.

Zevran has done and seen a million grotesque things, more than most see even in nightmares. He watched when Taliesen slit Rinna's throat, yet now he wants to avert his eyes. That's how he knows he can't.

Calm thoughts as he fights his way closer: _The ogre will definitely take his arm. It will die bloody. Lucky it isn't his head. How will he cast now?_

 

**What A Relief, I Was Worried You Might End Up As Competition**

Zevran is the first to see Orion when the healing is done, not Alistair. An appreciated kindness in spite of Wynne's disapproval.

Orion is waxen, pillowed on his hound. Zevran has never seen the redhead so disheveled. He focuses on Orion's eyes - patches of summer sky deep underground, surrounded by that dark tattoo. Of course he sees the bandages no matter how he tries not to. But he is more distracted by the strange little grin on his lover's face.

"I guess I won't be learning your massage technique after all," Orion whispers.

Zevran laughs deliriously, so hard it hurts.

 

**Obligation**

Alistair pulls Zevran aside at the outskirts of Orzammar. His eyes seem wet. Maybe it's the lava. Zevran swallows his cringe.

"He always puts on such a brave face. Never complains. You'll help him, won't you?"

Zevran watches Wynne fuss over Orion. "What use am I? He has the best healer in all of Ferelden, and he is out of the hardest part."

"No, he's not," Alistair's look is as weighted as his hand on Zevran's shoulder. "You'll help him, won't you?" he repeats, verging on threatening.

"However I can."

"Of course you will." Alistair smiles at Zevran. A first.

 

**If That Is What You Truly Want, Then I Shall**

"Get out!" Orion shouts, naked and dripping. "I won't tolerate your jokes, get out of my sight!"

It should be a treat, a shared bath in a royal estate. Zevran is utterly bewildered.

"It was no joke. We are the best-looking couple Orzammar has probably ever seen. Unless I've lost my appeal?" He teases.

"You think I can't bathe myself!" Orion sinks, shivering miserably, into the bathwater. "But I can and will."

"Of course. I am only here to spend quality time with you in the nude."

"Get out," Orion repeats. His voice cracks, but not his resolve. Zevran obeys.

 

**More Than Obligation**

The second breakdown is more public. Orion stubbornly attempts spells under Wynne's chiding supervision. Hailstones explode all over camp, plunking into stew and sizzling into fires. Orion shouts elvhen curses, kicks over supply crates, then stomps off with the hound. Everyone looks to Zevran.

He finds Orion sobbing, clutching his stump, his face pressed into Chompy's fur.

"My arm hurts," Orion gulps air. "And I'm no kind of mage. I can't stop the Blight like this."

"No one could," Zevran agrees, crouching to pet Chompy. "Not alone."

Orion crawls into his embrace. Zevran strokes his hair until he falls asleep.

 

**Sorry, I Refuse**

When Zevran first joined Orion, the Warden hardly slept, spending hours chatting up his companions, then pouring over books. He once joked he only had time for sex between chapters. Now Orion sleeps every free moment, and jokes and sex are a thing of the past.

His magic is slow to return, but he's mastered the stew bowl one-handed. He takes meals only with Zevran, snappish with anyone else. Yet one night Orion says, "I release you."

"I told you, I choose to stay."

"I release you from _us_. It's a way out."

"For which one of us, I wonder."

 

**New Things**

When they return to Orzammar with Dagna's good news, the dwarves ambush Orion with a lavish gift. It's an intricately jointed prosthesis, but also a weapon: enchanted metal infused with lyrium. Only Zevran is allowed close enough to help strap it on. It's so heavy it upsets the balance of Orion's slight frame, but he can hold a staff again. 

That night they try the luxurious bath again. The prosthetic rubbed Orion's stump raw. Tears stream down his face as Zevran dresses it.

"I'm pathetic."

"Only when you drink lyrium recreationally. And chew on your hair."

Orion laughs faintly, beautifully.

 

**I Won't Take It Back**

Orion is determined "make himself useful". With the focus of his staff, and much practice, he can cast spells again. He quickly learns how to utilize his new arm to make spells even more powerful. On the road to Denerim, Zevran spies him smirking as he freezes darkspawn solid. That night, Orion asks Leliana to sing her elvhen ballad to entertain the camp.

It's during that interlude that he kisses Zevran. It feels like the first time.

But Orion kicks him out of the tent when Zevran calls him handsome.

"I never was, and even less so now!"

"You're wrong."

 

**Heavy Things**

Orion is apologetic the next night. "You've stayed by me all this time. You deserve better than to be kicked out of bed and yelled at. Forgive me?"

"Nothing for me to forgive. You were sore yesterday, no?" The prosthetic is a chafing burden that Orion pushes himself to use. Zevran personally hates carrying unecessarily heavy things-- "But you _are_ handsome," he insists. "Brave. Strong."

Orion wraps him in an embrace that lacks nothing.

"You're incorrigible," he mutters, "You can do better than a one-armed oaf."

"Better than the hero who will save all the world from a Blight? Pah."

 

**Just As It Should Be**

The archdemon lets out a blood chilling roar as they light the stairs to Fort Drakon.

Orion is a rumpled mess of gore, wild strands of hair half in his mouth. It always seems to be whenever it works free from his cowl. Zevran still wants to kiss him.

"Hello up there, reason we're here, why I escaped the Circle, why I met Zevran, why my arm is in the belly of an ogre's corpse underground." Orion pulls the cork from a small vial with his teeth, sucks the lyrium out, throws the glass to shatter on the ground. His smirk shimmers. "I'm coming to thank you!" he cackles giddily.

"Thank him?" Oghren grunts. "That scaly nug bent your life over a chair and screwed it."

"I met Zevran." Zevran's gold earring catches torchlight and gleams as Orion tucks its chain beneath his robes. "It could've been worse."

"Worse? Let's not give the archdemon any ideas," Zevran warns him.

"Think about it. The ogre could've taken my cock!"

Oghren guffaws as they throw open the doors. Chompy bays along.

"Afraid, love?" Zevran asks.

"I was, for awhile."

"What changed your mind?"

"You didn't change yours."

But Zevran _had_ , long ago.


End file.
